About me

Petter Höglund gained his PhD in 1993 at the Department of tumour biology, Karolinska Institutet, KI. He gained his degree in medicine in 1996. He spent the period 1996-1999 as a postdoc at the Institute of genetics, biochemistry and cellular biology (IGBMC) of Strasbourg, France.

In 1999 he was awarded the Young Investigator Award by the Cancer Research Institute in the USA, and in 2001 the Swedish Society of Medicine's young senior research fellow prize. In 2003 he became an associate professor in immunology at KI.

During the period 1999-2010 he conducted research at MTC, KI, with funding from the Wenner-Gren Foundations, the Swedish Cancer Society, Karolinska Institutet and Karolinska University Hospital.

Since 2005 he has been a member of board of research education at KI. Becoming registered medical doctor in 2009, he now shares his time between research and clinical work, specialising in clinical immunology and transfusion medicine at Karolinska University Hospital, Huddinge.

Research description

NK cells (natural killer cells) are a type of lymphocyte that is considered part of the non-adaptive immune system and can recognize and kill virus-infected cells and cancer cells. When the immune system recovers after a stem cell transplantation, NK cells can contribute to important anti-cancer effects in patients with leukaemia - a reaction called Graft-versus-Leukaemia (GvL).

Petter Höglund's research aims to understand the molecular mechanisms that monitor the formation of NK cells in the body, a process that is significant for the GvL reaction.

Academic honours, awards and prizes

Petter Höglund was appointed professor of basal immunology, especially clinically applied cell therapy and transplantation at Karolinska Institutet in 2011.